Sutter County Sheriff's Officewww.suttersheriff.org

Sheriff’s Department Awarded ABC Grant

Wednesday, May 23, 2001 10:00 AM

For Immediate Release:

Sheriff Jim Denney announced today that the Sutter County Sheriff’s Department is the recipient of a $50,776 grant from the California State Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC). He received formal notification yesterday afternoon in a letter from ABC Interim Director Manuel R. Espinoza.

The Sheriff’s Department is one of 21 grant recipients throughout the California (see attached list) that received a portion of the $1.5 million distributed by ABC. Sutter County’s grant will fund half of deputy sheriff’s position ($28,281), overtime ($19,000), training/travel expenses ($1,000), and equipment ($2,495).

The Sheriff’s Department will use the grant to establish an ABC Enforcement Unit within the Patrol Division. The assigned deputy will work cohesively with ABC, allied agencies and community groups to educate merchants and the public, train fellow officers in ABC regulations and seek voluntary compliance from licensed premises via LEAD (Licensee Education on Alcohol and Drugs) and IMPACT (Informed Merchants Preventing Alcohol-Related Crime Tendencies) programs. Projects will include community education, Shoulder Tap and Decoy Sting operations, ROSTF (Retail Operating Standards Task Force) and Cops in Shops. The focus is to reduce youth access to alcohol and alcohol related calls for service utilizing increased community and merchant awareness and compliance.

The Sheriff’s Department has actively enforced ABC violations since 1993 when the department began conducting Minor Decoy/Shoulder Tap Programs in the area. To date, the Department has made 81 arrests for selling and furnishing alcohol to minors. The Department was also a recipient of a $5,500 Shoulder Tap Grant last October and continues to conduct these operations on a frequent basis. They also conduct frequent DUI checkpoints and are an active participant in the Every 15 Minutes program in the local high schools.

“I am extremely gratified to be the recipient of this grant,” Sheriff Jim Denney stated. “It will go a long way towards enhancing our enforcement efforts where alcohol is a contributing factor to problems in the local area.”

Denney stated that alcohol was a contributing factor in 76 of the domestic violence cases handled by the Sheriff’s Department in 2000. Seventy-five percent of the aggravated assaults and every reported battery case had alcohol as a contributing factor. Deputies arrested 56 minors for possession of alcohol in public places and arrested 212 individuals for public intoxication. In addition, DUI arrests in the unincorporated area of Sutter County totaled 334, with 43 traffic collisions determined to have DUI as the primary collision factor.

Denney credited Sheriff’s Sergeant Randy Pack in researching and writing the grant for the Sheriff’s Department. The grant will be formally submitted to the Sutter County Board of Supervisors for acceptance in June and the program will officially begin July 1, 2001.